Final February 2025, 21-year-old Reece Gallagher was named the TAFE Queensland Gold Coast Apprentice Excellence Award winner for 2024, recognising a standout 12 months of accomplishment within the automotive electrical commerce.
Reece, who grew up on a dairy farm in northern New South Wales, turned his childhood love of pulling issues aside right into a thriving profession—and a sequence of high awards.
As automobiles develop extra complicated, Australia faces a widening hole in expert diagnostic technicians. Reece’s journey reveals how vocational training and sheer dedication can construct important expertise for future industries. “Professionally, it provides me large expectations to stay as much as, which I get pleasure from as a result of it pushes me to stroll the stroll,” he mentioned.
Reece accomplished his Certificates III in Automotive Electrical Expertise at TAFE Queensland’s Ashmore campus on the Gold Coast.
Regardless of travelling 1.5 hours weekly from the far north coast of NSW, he mentioned the journey was value it: “The campus services are high-quality, there’s all kinds of automobiles, and unbelievable diagnostic instruments.”
He additionally acknowledged his lecturers: “I had some nice lecturers, particularly with the help main as much as the 2023 WorldSkills Nationals.”
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🥇 Scored above 95 out of 100 on the 2024 WorldSkills Nationals, his private finest.
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🧰 Accomplished a full Certificates III commerce qualification at TAFE Queensland.
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🏆 Received 2024 TAFE Gold Coast Automotive Apprentice of the Yr and 2024 Apprentice Excellence Award (offered in Feb 2025).
As a young person, Reece didn’t even know the commerce existed.
“To be completely trustworthy, I didn’t even know being an auto electrician was a job,” he mentioned.
That modified when a highschool various pathways program led him to a fortunate work placement.
“It was simply by luck that this one got here up, and I knew it was for me after only one week.”
That week sparked a ardour. “I spent my time pulling aside TVs, dismantling computer systems, and fixing something with a wire,” Reece recalled. That tinkerer’s mindset turned the inspiration of his success.
Reece additionally made a comeback after lacking out on the Apprentice of the Yr award in his second and third years.
“That one meant so much as a result of I made certain to place in my finest effort and labored exhausting to earn it.”
Reece’s story displays the altering nature of trades. With electrical and sensible automobiles on the rise, the necessity for technical specialists is rising quick.
“The automotive business goes to be very totally different in 5 to 10 years. With advances in trendy automobiles, there’s already a spot in competent diagnostic technicians, and I feel that hole will solely get bigger.”
Along with his award-winning momentum and a ardour for studying, Reece is predicted to proceed excelling—presumably even mentoring the following wave of tradies. His recommendation to others?
“Something is value having a go. I didn’t know a single factor about this business, however I had an curiosity in the kind of work and look the place it’s taken me. I’m so glad I gave this job an opportunity as a result of it’s given me wonderful expertise and even higher alternatives.”
